When Queen Victoria came to Fleetwood in 1847, she travelled by train, but the Olympic torch can't take the same route: the line was axed in the late 1960s. Fleetwood's story is often one of loss, linked to the decline of its fishing and transport industries, but it is still a characterful, bracing seaside resort, with views for the torchbearers to savour across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District and even the Isle of Man (on a clear day).

It's good to drag Fleetwood out of Blackpool's long shadow: the town may not share the buzz of its bigger neighbour, but it also (happily) lacks the stag and hen parties, the lapdancing clubs and all those shops selling outrageous tat. It was designed by the prolific architect Decimus Burton, who drew up plans for streets to radiate from the Mount – a hill landscaped from sand dunes, set back from the promenade – like spokes of (half a) wheel. Burton also designed the town's North Euston hotel, which opened six years before Victoria's arrival.

The hotel's name hints at the ambitions once held for Fleetwood, whose train line and Ardrossan-bound steamers made it a stopping-off point for anyone travelling on the west-coast route between Scotland and London. However, in the mid-19th century a direct rail link was established: this was the first blow for Fleetwood, but not the last. Deep-sea fishing has since disappeared, along with the ferry services to Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There's still a glimmer of hope, though, in a town with two functioning Victorian lighthouses. The torch relay may not include the Fisherman's Friend factory but it does take in places spruced up with money from the factory's owners, the Lofthouse family – including the gardens in front of the art-deco Marine Hall, which hosts clog-dancing contests during the annual Fylde folk festival at the end of the summer.

Fleetwood also has what must be Britain's only tram festival (officially the Fleetwood Festival of Transport; locals know it simply as "Tram Sunday"), and naturally a tram will feature on the Olympic route today, carrying the torch from outside Rossall school to neighbouring Cleveleys. Hopefully, it won't suffer the same fate as the first of the new generation of trams, which derailed in Fleetwood last April after sand blew on to the tracks.

This could be Fleetwood's year. First its football club was promoted to the Football League for the first time, then local boy Alfie Boe sang at the diamond jubilee concert, and now the torch … Maybe the glory days are coming back for the town at the end of the tramline.

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